"When Chinese gather, a villain occurs"...Seoul Transportation Corporation's Complaint Response Controversy

Seoul Response Center's homepage capture

Controversy arose when an employee of the Seoul Transportation Corporation used expressions denigrating Chinese people in responding to public complaints from citizens.According to the website of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's response office on the 18th of

, the crew support center of the Seoul Transportation Corporation used a derogatory expression of Chinese in response to complaints about 'request for correction of excessive Chinese announcements in the old palace and subway.'

In response to the complaint, which said, "Chinese people are often noisy and noisy when two or more people gather, so it is necessary to convey order by sending etiquette broadcasts to keep order in the train."

In addition, when asked to send an announcement only in English, he replied, "We will review once again whether the announcement can be sent only in Korean and English."

The response was published online and immediately became controversial. It was pointed out that it was not appropriate for public enterprises under the Seoul Metropolitan Government to reject foreigners of a specific nationality by using expressions that denigrate them and revealing cultural prejudice.

As the controversy arose, the Seoul Transportation Corporation said, "We apologize for the inclusion of inappropriate words and contents about Chinese tourists in the process of answering civil complaints," adding, "We will provide special training to all employees, including the civil complaint response department, and improve the system so that the head of the department can directly answer the civil complaint or check the contents."

"We will do our best to create an organizational culture that recognizes the environment and diversity of subways that foreign tourists can use more conveniently," he said, denying that "we have not considered such a plan."

Reporter Lee Yu Na from Digital News Team.